Owl Pellet Studies at Altamont and Jefferson Elementary Schools

On Friday, March 25, I visited the Altamont Elementary School and worked with three fourth grade classes. I worked with Ms. DeGennaro, Mrs. Flanagan and Mrs. Vogel’s classes. Here is what we found when we dissected owl pellets.

Ms. DeGennnaro’s class – in 8 pellets dissected we found 20 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. Flanagans’ class – in 9 pellets we found 24 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. Vogel’s class – in 8 pellets we found 24 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds

This is a very small sample to use to determine if my hypothesis (remember I had answered the question, “What is an owl’s favorite foo?” with the hypothesis that mice were the most favored, shrews second most and moles and birds tied for third) was correct. Clearly, mice are the most favored, but before we can say that shrews are the second most favored we have to think about what these numbers mean.

Yes, there were 2 shrews found in the 25 pellets we dissected along with no moles or birds. That may or may not mean that shrews indeed are the second most favored over moles and birds. Our sample size of owl pellets is very small. Because of this we should not be ready to say that shrews are surely the second most favored food. We would want to dissect more pellets to get more evidence. As a matter of fact I did an owl ecology session with 5^th graders at Jefferson Elementary School in Rotterdam today. Here is what we found.

Mrs. Bondi’s class – in 11 pellets dissected we found 32 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. Walker’s class – in 11 pellets we found 24 mice, 0 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. West’s class – in 11 pellets we found 29 mice, 7 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. Fiske’s class – in 9 pellets we found 23 mice, 1 shrew, 0 moles and 0 birds

Mrs. Zanta’s class – in 11 pellets we found 37 mice, 2 shrews, 0 moles and 0 birds

Looking at just the Jefferson Elementary findings we see out of 53 pellets dissected there were 145 mice, 10 shrews and no birds or moles. This confirms what we found at Altamont, mice are the most favored. Now with a larger sample size we can better determine the preference for shrews. With two shrews found by the Altamont students and 10 shrews found by Jefferson students it does appear that shrews are the second favored food. With no moles or birds found at either schools we are still not sure if they are a third favored food. As a matter of fact with no moles or birds found we might presume that they are not eaten at all.

Just as discussed in each class I visited, the more pellets we can dissect the better of an understanding we will have for owl food preference. If we increase our sample size we would get more data that might shed light on the question of what role do moles and birds play in the owl food preference. We can do that by looking at what was found in owl pellets dissections in other schools, including what was found at Altamont and Jefferson Elementary schools in previous years. To do this check out my blog at www.schoolyardnaturalist.blogspot.com to see what the findings at other schools were and then draw conclusions about my hypothesis.

Of course if any student would like to do further studies on their own and dissect more pellets they can get pellets from Pellets,Inc. at www.pelletsinc.com. Naturally if students have more questions they can e-mail me and I would love to help them with their research.